IHT Rendezvous: Should Common Plastics Be Labeled Toxic?

THE HAGUE — Hoping to reduce one of the most ubiquitous forms of waste, a global group of scientists is proposing that certain types of plastic be labeled hazardous.The group, lead by two California scientists, wrote in this week’s issue of the scientific journal Nature:We believe that if countries classified the most harmful plastics as hazardous, their environmental agencies would have the power...

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Fugitive Ex-Cop Christopher Dorner May Have Committed Suicide

By Howard Breuer 02/16/2013 at 10:00 AM EST Undated photo of Christopher Dorner LAPD/AP Ex-LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner pledged to kill a lot of cops in his revenge-fueled killing spree, but once he was surrounded on Tuesday, Dorner apparently turned one of...

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.Edwards...

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San Bernardino County sheriff details final shootout with Dorner

Fugitive Christopher Dorner spent his final hours barricaded inside a mountain cabin armed with a high-powered sniper rifle,...

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The Lede: Spectacular Video of Meteor Over Siberia

Video posted on YouTube Friday appeared to catch an explosion caused by a meteor streaking over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.Last Updated, 11:08 a.m. As our colleagues Ellen Barry and Andrew Kramer report, Russians recorded video of bright objects, apparently debris from a meteor, “streaking through the sky in western Siberia early on Friday, accompanied by a boom that damaged buildings across...

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Megyn Kelly Expecting a Baby

Mom & Babies Celebrity Baby Blog 02/14/2013 at 03:00 PM ET Andy Kropa/GettyNews flash: Megyn Kelly is pregnant!The America Live host, 42, and her husband Doug Brunt are expecting their third child together, she announced on air Thursday.“Every Valentine’s Day we always struggle to find just the...

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Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction

BOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.The findings, published online Thursday in...

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San Diego ex-mayor used charity funds to cover gambling debts

SAN DIEGO — She married a fabulously wealthy man decades her elder, and became the first female mayor of San Diego. But when...

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Pope Says He Will Be ‘Hidden To The World’ In Retirement

VATICAN CITY — Saying he would soon be “hidden to the world,” Pope Benedict XVI took his leave of parish priests and clergy of the Diocese of Rome on Thursday in a moving encounter during which he gave a personal, and incisive, recollection of the Second Vatican Council, the gathering of bishops 50 years ago that set the Roman Catholic Church’s course for the future. Benedict, who announced...

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Valentine's Day Playlist for All the Single Ladies

02/14/2013 at 11:00 AM EST It's Valentine's Day – and you know what that means.Your coworkers are all wearing red. (You're in black.) Your "couple friends" are making Facebook positively nauseating today with multiple "I love you, schmoopie" posts. (You posted a link to a news article on rising divorce rates.) Cut-outs of a certain flying,...

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Morning-after pill use up to 1 in 9 younger women

NEW YORK (AP) — About 1 in 9 younger women have used the morning-after pill after sex, according to the first government report to focus on emergency contraception since its approval 15 years ago.The results come from a survey of females ages 15 to 44. Eleven percent of those who'd had sex reported using a morning-after pill. That's up from 4 percent in 2002, only a few years after the pills went...

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Coach posed as girl to get nude images of boys, police allege

An Irvine baseball coach and high school history teacher posed as a young blonde woman on Facebook to persuade boys to send him pornographic images of themselves, prosecutors alleged this week. Zachary Reeder, 30, of Orange has been charged with 110 felonies, including 34 counts each of distributing pornography to a minor, contacting a child with the intent to commit a lewd act and using...

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At War Blog: How to Help Veterans Succeed in College

In 2004, I returned from a year in Iraq to finish my undergraduate degree at the University of Rhode Island. Since I took more than a year’s leave of absence to deploy, I was forced to reapply to the university. While writing another entrance essay to explain how I spent my “year off,” I wondered why my school didn’t have a peer support system for its students who are veterans.In just a few years,...

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Stephen Fishbach Blogs: Show's Worst Players Will Make Survivor: Caramoan Great

TV Watch Survivor By Stephen Fishbach 02/13/2013 at 10:15 AM EST Stephen Fishbach was the runner-up on Survivor: Tocantins and has been blogging about Survivor strategy for PEOPLE.com since 2009. Follow him on Twitter @stephenfishbach."Survivor's not meant to be a comedy routine." – Cochran, Survivor: South PacificHere's...

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Report: Tracking system needed to fight fake drugs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting the problem of fake drugs will require putting medications through a chain of custody like U.S. courts require for evidence in a trial, the Institute of Medicine reported Wednesday.The call for a national drug tracking system comes a week after the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors, for the third time in about a year, that it discovered a counterfeit batch of the...

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Dorner manhunt leads to deadly standoff

When authorities hemmed in the man they suspected of killing three people in a campaign of revenge that has gripped Southern...

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India Ink: In Kashmir, Clashes and Dwindling Supplies As Curfew Continues

The Kashmir Valley is on the fourth day of a government-imposed shutdown begun immediately after the hanging of the militant Muhammad Afzal, also known as Afzal Guru, who comes from the town of Sopore in Baramulla district. Many residents are running out of food and milk in Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital. Meanwhile, dozens have been injured and at least one killed in protests against Mr. Afzal’s...

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Westminster's Most Paw-some Moments - So Far!

People Pets 02/12/2013 at 11:00 AM EST You snooze, you lose? Not when you're as adorable as this Bichon Frise Frank Franklin II/AP It may be Fat Tuesday, but as any dog lover knows, the real action is at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.Dogs of every shape,...

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Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life

The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for...

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Ex-Bell officials defend themselves as honorable public servants

Less than three years ago, they were handcuffed and taken away in a case alleged to be so extensive that the district attorney...

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The Lede: Latest Updates on the Pope’s Resignation

The Lede is providing updates on Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement on Monday that he intends to resign on Feb. 28, less than eight years after he took office, the first pope to do so in six centuri...

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Record $1 Million Bounty Offered for Fugitive Cop

By Andrea Billups 02/11/2013 at 09:15 AM EST Undated photo of Christopher Dorner LAPD/AP Authorities in Los Angeles upped the ante Sunday on a bounty for Christopher Dorner, the fugitive former Los Angeles police officer who remains at large after killing another...

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What heals traumatized kids? Answers are lacking

CHICAGO (AP) — Shootings and other traumatic events involving children are not rare events, but there's a startling lack of scientific evidence on the best ways to help young survivors and witnesses heal, a government-funded analysis found.School-based counseling treatments showed the most promise, but there's no hard proof that anxiety drugs or other medication work and far more research is needed...

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Dorner's LAPD firing case hinged on credibility

For a Los Angeles Police Department disciplinary panel, the evidence was persuasive: Rookie officer Christopher Jordan Dorner...

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Kelly Clarkson: Grammy Nominated and Honored with 'Stronger' Cocktail

By Dahvi Shira 02/10/2013 at 10:00 AM EST Stronger Old Fashioned and Kelly Clarkson (inset) Anjali Pinto. Inset: Kevin Winter/Getty The Grammy Awards are just one more reason to celebrate current PEOPLE cover star Kelly Clarkson.PEOPLE's current cover girl, 30, topped off her recent engagement...

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